Simple‐Architectured Elastic Touch Sensor with High Spatiotemporal Resolution

Abstract Deformable touch sensors with a high spatiotemporal resolution have recently attracted significant attention as a promising option for electronic skin and human‐machine interfaces. However, the conventional electronic matrix arrays require a large number of addressing lines and suffer from response time delay. In this study, a novel mechanically robust elastic electronic touch sensor is reported featuring only a limited number (2 or 4) of signal terminals. The sensor has a simple structure comprising an elastic spacer and two substrates with a conductive electrode of uniform resistance along the entire length of the electrode. By decoding the temporal resistance profiles from the touch sensor by using a simple simulator, the sensor can provide precise touch information such as position, instant moving speed and direction, and the trajectories of the movements. The touch actions are displayed in real‐time, regardless of whether the sensor is deformed or not. It is expected that this study will present a new approach to simplify the architecture of human‐machine interfaces.